California School Apologizes For Illegally Banning Sixth Grader's Presentation On Harvey Milk

Natalie Jones, a sixth grader at Mt. Woodson Elementary School in Ramona, California, was given an assignment in an independent study project class to write a report on any subject she found interesting. She chose Harvey Milk. Milk, the United States's first openly gay elected official, was one of Time Magazines Time 100 Heroes and Icons of the 20th Century in 1999, has been the subject of several books, an opera, a documentary film that won the 1984 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, and a feature film released in 2008 that won two Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor.

After Natalie got a near-perfect score on her report, her class was told to make PowerPoint presentations about their reports, which they would show to other students in the class. The day before Natalie was to give her 12-page presentation she was called into the principals office and told she couldn't do so.

Wrongly citing a school policy on sex education, the school violated Natalie Jones' free speech rights when it refused to allow her to give the presentation in class. Instead, the school improperly required classmates to get parental permission to see the presentation during a lunch recess. This illegal censorship of student speech violates both the First Amendment and the California Education Code and misuses a school policy in order to justify the censorship.
For more information visit: www.aclu.org/milk.

Edited for the ACLU by Anna Mumford.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• ACLU
• LGBT Project
• LGBT
• Harvey Milk
• Sean Penn
• San Francisco history
• free speech
• gay history
• Milk

[Varoonmg]

@calvinjt1969 Instead of banning presentations on Gay Rights Activists, the state should probably dedicate more time and money preventing hallucinating parents teach their children that there imaginary gods and angels in the universe....

[LifeForBass]

Seriously, is there anything schools and closed-minded fuckwads WON'T try to stick their fingers into?

[turnupthegood55]

@calvinjt1969 and ill eat out your mom.;) wait...atleady did.

[itsconnorjon]

@calvinjt1969 can I suck yo dick?! I'd love to eat out yo asshole too!!!

[calvinjt1969]

So.....you're in favor of the spreading of diseases such as aids and destroying the American family. Not to mention breaking God's law....? Good for you, something to be proud of!

[alotofcheese76]

My school violated my right of free speech because they yelled at e about thing s on my blog and I got suspended for it too.

[rs954]

natalie jones yaaa i knew her shes friends with carson and yaa i went to her school... now she goes to op and so do i hell ya fuckin awesome school!

COLE OWNS

[watty788]

I know her!

[lonelyboy03]

"Family Values" in action (.

[digitalboy75]

Hooray for Natalie and everyone else who stands up for their rights, and the rights of others!